Constructions of Risk (CFP deadline Dec. 7, conference Feb. 24)
CALL FOR PAPERS
Constructions of Risk
What is at stake when risk is invoked? While risk is understood differently in various academic fields and social locations, risk categories are often used to construct groups or individuals in specific ways. For this interdisciplinary conference to be held at UBC on February 24, 2011, we invite your explorations of risk in areas including (but not limited to) health, education, youth, sex, disability, and violence. You may wish to consider the following:
How does being identified as "at-risk" create additional (sometimes certain) risks or negative outcomes for people?
How can being identified as part of a risk group overshadow other aspects of individual or community identity?
When program or research funding depends on identifying a group as 'at risk,' how does that shape community or academic resources?
When categories of risk are invoked, what other potential groups are overlooked or erased?
How do discourses of risk intersect with discourses of choice or empowerment?
Our Keynote Address will be by Lori MacIntosh, whose research interests include queer theory and diversity education, sexual minority youth and schooling, and the pedagogy of popular culture and new media.
The conference will be held Thursday February 24, 2011 at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC.
Proposals should include your paper's title, an abstract (up to 250 words), and a biography (up to 150 words). Please send your proposal as a single attachment to: firstname.lastname@example.org by December 7, 2010. Please indicate "Constructions of Risk" in your subject line.